Injury Updates

and with words

SKINS Injury Update: Pre-season


Conor Walsh

Essendon Physical Performance Manager Justin Crow says star forward Joe Daniher has made “good steps forward” in his recovery from osteitis pubis.

The 2017 Crichton Medallist, who has been out of action since round seven last year, recently returned for stints with the main training group at The Hangar and Crow said he is pleased with the tall forward’s progress.

“I think Joe’s making some good steps forward, we’ve seen him in some training drills over the last fortnight,” Crow said on the SKINS Injury Update on Tuesday.

“We’ve got to remember that over the previous six months Joe has done hardly any football at all and with a long-term view to his return, building the fundamentals for the rest of his career.

“We’ll be taking it step by step with Joe, but we’ll expect to see him in more and more football-specific training over the next month.”

Club captain Dyson Heppell is on restricted training due to minor hamstring soreness, but the inspirational leader remains on track to enter the quickly approaching season with a clean bill of health.

Dyson has some hamstring tendon pain – we’d call this, in the season, a minor niggle.

“We’d like Dyson, given his workload in the season, to go into competitive AFL matches clean and without any niggles or issues so we’ve taken a really conservative approach to that.

“He had a few days off his feet, he’s back running now, he’s got no pain clinically - which means when in the physio room when we test it, it seems okay.

“We’ll be putting him on an individual program over the next fortnight to try and clear that and give him a clean run at the season.”

Fellow leader Zach Merrett continues to improve following an ankle sprain in mid-January, progressing out of his moonboot as he pushes for a return to full training.

“He’ll be looking to get on the AlterG (treadmill) over the next week once he can hop pain-free,” Crow said.

“The progression from there, hopefully quite quickly over the next couple of weeks, is to run over ground, work on his change of direction and start to integrate (him) back into training.”

Crow said young on-baller Kobe Mutch was lucky to escape serious injury after an unfortunate incident at training last week .

Citing the similar marking contest that led to utility Mason Redman’s ankle fracture in November, Crow said Mutch’s scans yielded more encouraging results.

Kobe was sent off for scans and fortunately his injury is different to Mason’s,” he said.

Kobe has a lateral ligament sprain to his ankle, which isn’t a big concern, but he does have some talar dome bruising, so bone bruising within that ankle.

“He is progressing out of a boot over the next couple of days and then he’ll be brought up as his pain allows with that bone bruising, which makes it a little unpredictable.

“Once he can hop pain-free we’ll get him running on the AlterG (treadmill) and then build him up from there.”

Redman has made his own improvements in recent weeks, returning to the track in a significant step forward in his rehabilitation.

Mason was out of the boot two and a half weeks ago, he’s worked through his AlterG progressions in terms of the amount of body weight he’s been able to tolerate with his running.

“He’s been running over ground now for a couple of sessions.

“We’re looking forward to seeing Mason build up his running volume, given he was in the boot for a period, and then working on his change of direction and integrating back into training over the next few weeks. “

Crow said the club is taking a patient approach to the management of key defender Cale Hooker’s minor hamstring concern to ensure the important Bomber is ready to fire in round one.

“Cale Hooker is working through hamstring running progressions. He had some pain in his hamstring after a session – (there was) no incident.

“When we scanned it there was an injury there, so we’ve taken the opportunity to get a good block of aerobic running into Cale.

“Given his history, particularly early in his career when he had a number of hamstring injuries, we’re going to take this slow and steady and make sure we build up a really good base for him ahead of the season.”

Meanwhile, intercepting defender Marty Gleeson has shown encouraging signs in his long-term recovery from a serious ankle injury sustained in last year’s JLT Community Series Clash with Geelong.

Marty has done his first lot of technical football drills over the last week and we’ll be looking to do more and more football-specific training with Marty over the coming month,” Crow said.

“It’s dipping the toe in the water in those dynamic football drills where we’ll really get a good feel for how Marty’s progressing in that end stage of his rehab.”

Young forward Josh Begley has also taken big strides in his rehabilitation from an ACL injury suffered during the 2018 ANZAC Day clash with Collingwood, taking part in several drills with the main squad.

“You’ve seen him in some quite dynamic group drills with a (non-contact) bib on still, just making sure we keep him out of trouble.

“We’re just looking for more and more opportunities over the next couple of weeks to get him doing more competitive football drills and we’ll be testing all of those things we need to tick off to make sure that Josh is cleared to play whenever he’s ready.”

The Bombers are just weeks away from returning to the field, with the side’s first JLT Community Series match kicking off the pre-season competition against Carlton on Thursday, February 28.

1 Like

Justin Crowe’s injury updates always leave me feeling depressed.

1 Like

It’s almost as if the club know this, and have planned players pre-seasons accordingly

7 Likes

I actually read this quite positively.
Very good news on Fridge.
Good solid care and maintenance with Hepp and Hooker, keeping their base fitness reasonable.
Marty seems to have made progress in that last 10% that was frustrating his return.
Joe is building nicely with no set backs, fingers crossed.

Leaves Zach, who should be right, if a bit underdone, Redman and Mutch
All of whom were contact / collision injuries.
And the mystery that is Conor
No shoulders, groins, broken legs, or mental health issues touch wood.

3 Likes

TBC
TBC
TBC
TBC
TBC

2 Likes

2 Likes

I hope the Reboot arm injury is unlike a knock to the knee. If it was the latter, it would probably be season ending

2 Likes

Thanks to the club for the detailed report.

Much appreciated.

4 Likes

Totally agree.

I can’t believe the sooking from some about the current state of injuries.
Barring new injuries we’re going to be very close to full strength come round 1.

3 Likes

Damn club continuing to give us detailed updates on injuries and stages of recovery for individual players. When will they learn to just lie to us and provide false hope with precise timelines and guarantees of playing time. So over this pre-season and Justen Crouwe (sic)

1 Like

What’s the rationale of choosing intravenous over drinking with your other arm? I assume there is no is medical report of this decision? Corrupt. Sack the medical team. The club has learnt nothing.

2 Likes

Everybody chill and watch all of the players injuries miraculously clear up after AFLX.

8 Likes

JOEDAN looks huge.

1 Like

Most players tracking well to be available R1. Should have almost a full list.

Meanwhile over at Blitz…

It’s a long season Nino.
You’re already in danger of peaking too early.

3 Likes

Far be it for me to be the one to quell the hysteria, but guys are listed as TBC because it’s preseason, guys would be playing on several of those injuries if it was in season.

1 Like

The best thing about that Injury report was seeing Hooker without that stupid man bun thing on his head finally!!!

2 Likes

How is Bellchambers tracking for round 1?

I imagine he will be fine. He has been doing quite a lot of running and has joined in with the main group for a lot of drills.

Even though he’s missed a lot of sessions I can’t remember him being with the modified group, he must be on an individual program monitoring his loads

1 Like

Has Belly always had significantly interrupted pre-seasons?